The third edition of The Vault Home Bar Festival is slated for this weekend at Mumbai's Jio World Garden. With the addition of wines and beers this year it has moved on from being a 'fine spirits' occasion to one spread across a wider variety of alcohols, including whisky, gin, rum, tequila, wines, craft beer and even feni. With a curated selection of cuisine, coffee, and music in the mix along with immersive experience zones to taste the best of drinks, the festival promises to be a multi-sensorial fare. We spoke to Keshav Prakash, the founder and curator of the festival on the details. 

Man's Word: What is different and unique about Vault Festival 2024, as compared to the previous editions? 

Keshav Prakash: Well, if you look at it through your right eye, nothing would have changed because our essence has always been to create a platform, ambience, and opportunity for conversations around fine spirits.  But, if you look at it through your left eye, almost everything is different this year. To start with, it is an evening event, a time when the weather is still pleasant in Mumbai. We've created a festival for people who have home bars, who love to come and experience what's new out there and want to meet fellow enthusiasts. It's a gathering of people who love fine things - cuisine and drinks especially.  We are India’s largest craft drinks festival. Drinks is the underlying word this year because we've added wine and craft beer. 

Home-bar owners   will experience everything they   may need to host guests at home. They will meet distillers, storytellers, brands who will be available for conversations. It is a chance for consumers to connect with the brands, and for brands to connect with the  consumer. We have, for the first time, India's pioneering local single malt brands Amrut and Paul John coming together on the same platform. We reached out to them saying you  very often  participate individually, now why not celebrate the story of Indian single malt together. And they agreed. So, you will see a space called the story of the Indian Single Malt.

Another aspect to look forward to is a cutting-edge feature by Ardbeg called Pursuit of Smoke Experience. It's a tasting experience in an immersive sound/light show ambience with lots of smoke to go with the character of the Single Malt. All this will be in a   dark room with projection mapping, sound and lights. It will be an aromatic sensory experience unlike any other. 

Then there is Sidecar, India's no.1 bar as per 30BestBarsIndia, doing an exclusive pop up with specially made cocktails. And Counter Top Labs is doing a sit-down DIY cocktail workshop.

MW: What was the idea behind introducing wine and beer this year? 

KP: For us it's always about where we are leading our audience. What is next?  You're coming here to experience everything that I would want to take back home with me. So why should curated wine be left out? 

Since it is a curated experience, we have asked the brands to present only limited-edition wines. Similarly, we will have only two India craft beer specialists at the show —The Rolling Mills and Great State Aleworks. 

Also making its presence felt this year is sake, which is slowly making inroads into India. We will have a dozen Sake brands for guests to try out. And not to be left out we will have a feni brand, Tinto at the show. 

Despite the larger varieties of alcohol being present this year, the ethos remains the same — conversation around fine drinks, mixology, and spirits.

MW: Rum is also an increasing presence at the festival.

KP:  Yes, we have four craft rums at the festival this time — Camikara, Sitara, Kraken and Shimla Premium. For the longest time, craft rum has been waiting in the background, for its turn to be the shining star.  I don't know why because we are the land of sugarcane. We are masters at converting   molasses into whisky.   We   know how to extract every ounce of sugar from the cane. So, I think it will only be a matter of time before craft rum has its time in the manner of what happened to gin over the last five years.  A similar thing is happening with tequila and mezcal as well.

What I anticipate is that in the future people will want a multi-category of experiences simultaneously. Our audience, especially the one we are addressing, is highly dynamic, intelligent, and well-travelled. They are very curious. They want to try everything under the sun and decide what they like and what they don't. It won't be about big brands anymore. 

MW: What are the other interesting alcohol experiences that we will see at Vault Festival 2024? 

KP: In the area of whisky besides the usual players like Suntory Toki, Laphroaig, Bowmore, Ardbeg, The Macallan, etc. we also have some   UK companies bringing down their lesser-known single malts and blends. 
There is a large variety of gins from India including Kumaon & I, and several interesting international ones like 44 N from Comte de Grasse, which uses perfumery techniques popular in the Grasse region of France to distil their alcohol. Everyone should try it. 

MW: Why is Sidecar your bar of choice this year?

KP: Well, Sidecar is one of my favourite bars in the world. No trip of mine to Delhi is complete   without one visit to Sidecar. And whether I drink or not, I at least munch on their signature peanuts. They also happen to make great drinks and I have been a big fan of their co-owner and bartending genius Yangdup Lama for decades now.  I’m absolutely impressed with what they've done. Of course, it is always rated as the no.1 bar in India. So getting them down was a no-brainer. 

MW: From the first Vault Festival to now, how do you see the consumer preferences changing? 

KP: The pandemic that has possibly, permanently changed consumer behaviour towards alcohol around the world, at least for a very long time to come. There has been a dramatic shift in consumer trends, likes and dislikes.

As for Vault, I see a huge increase in consumer confidence. Earlier we were leading the consumers saying ‘hey, I have this event, come and experience it.’ But five years down the line the consumer is going to come, pick and choose what he or she wants. And hence the increase in variety and scope of the offerings now. Probably because of social media, consumers are very sure of what they want. They are far more informed, and more nuanced in their approach.

MW:  What is the number of people that you're expecting this time as against last time?

KP:  Last time it was over 2000+. We want to keep the number more or less around the same figure, maybe just a marginal increase. We've never been a numbers festival anyway. We are akin to the slow food festival, so we want to keep it tight. We are more concerned about the quality of our audience than the quantity. So I tell my team let's not get bigger, but let's get better.

MW: Finally, if you had to choose three experiences at Vault Festival 2024,what would those be? 

KP: You are putting me in a spot here. To   be absolutely fair, I think one should not miss the Pursuit of Smoke experience. Among the foreign categories of alcohol, I would try out the innovative offerings of House of Comte de Grasse. It is a very unique gin. Kumaon & I could be the Indian gin that one should experience. And I've always been a fan of highball, for which I would recommend Toki, a simple whisky drink to start the evening.  Then move on to the SpeedX bar, and explore what a home bar should be like; after this     go over and break your palette with a Comte de Grasse G&T, and come back and finish with a high at the House of Ardbeg. Of course, enjoy the lovely food and carefully selected live band through all this.